Chapter 3

Whispers

"Have you guessed the riddle yet?" the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

"No, I give it up," Alice replied: "What's the answer?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter

The next morning, Luz awoke to the sound of her telephone ringing. As she rolled over in bed and yanked the phone off the hook, she heard Lilith's voice on the other end of the line.

She sounded coarse and shaky like she had just finished crying.

"Raine was found today…the police think they killed Eda."

"Where are they taking them?" Luz asked, sitting up.

"The Bonesburrow Behavioral Health Ward. It's just outside of town." Lilith explained.

"I'm on my way, I'll call you once I know more," Luz said dropping the phone on the hook and springing out of bed, throwing on her clothes before picking up the phone again and dialing the number written on the front of Abagail's autopsy report.

…

The drive up to the Bonesburrow Behavioral Health Ward took Willow's jeep up a winding mountain road, surrounded by trees on either side, the forest canopy was so thick Luz could barely see what was going on past the first few feet of the tree line.

She wasn't entirely sure how the foreboding scenery was conducive to improving one's mental health, but what did she know? She had given up her psychology major dreams a long time ago.

"Have you learned anything new from the autopsy report?" Willow asked, hope creeping into her voice.

"There are some things I found that were concerning. I'm having them looked into by an expert." She replied.

It wasn't a lie. Not entirely.

"Once I know more, so will you," Luz assured her companion, who nodded in understanding.

"Do you really think Raine might know what happened to Abagail?"

Luz nodded.

"They are the only ones who might have any kind of answers for us." She said as they pulled off the main road and started rumbling down a small dirt and gravel trail.

Up ahead, Luz could see the Behavioral Health Ward in a clearing. It was a small white plantation-style manor, surrounded by several auxiliary buildings, as well as fountains and flowerbeds of varying sizes with winding brick footpaths that wound through the facility.

Willow slowly pulled into an improved parking spot next to a dust-covered black town car and shut the engine off before reaching back and pulling her backpack into her lap.

"I'll wait out here, I've got homework to do. Just come back here when you're ready to leave." She said as Luz nodded before she got out of the car and started walking towards the main building, walking between flower beds filled with purple hydrangeas and coral peonies that were being tended to by people of various ages dressed in white pullovers and blue sweatpants with white slide on shoes.

As she walked up the steps and into the lobby, a black-haired girl with a basket full of white lilies walked up to her.

"Visiting someone?"

"Sure am," Luz said before the girl offered her a flower.

"Here you go." She said warmly. "I think they'd appreciate the pick me up."

Luz smiled back at her before taking the plant.

"Check-in is right over there." The girl said, pointing to the counter behind her before walking over to greet a man and a woman who had walked in behind her.

As Luz approached the counter, a bald man looked up from the large ledger that sat on his desk.

"Name?" He asked, preparing his pen.

"Luz Noceda." She replied, scanning the ledger for names she knew as he jotted hers down.

"Visiting?"

"Raine Whispers."

The man looked up at her and raised his eyebrow.

"I'm gonna have to clear that with the chief of police." He said reaching for his phone.

"Actually, Hunter Eurig is my point of contact with the police. He's expecting me." Luz said, pointing to the ledger.

"We spoke yesterday." She assured him as he eyed the phone before sitting back in his chair.

"If you really wanted to, you can call him down here, or you can call the chief and have him re-explain everything I just told you, but's probably gonna be a lot more irritable than me." She continued before pulling out her phone and glancing at the screen with a wince.

"Especially considering the time."

The man sighed and picked up his pen.

"How did you spell your last name again?"

After Luz coached him, he reached under the desk and pulled out a giant plastic case, and set it down on the counter.

"Please put any sharp objects or any weapons that you may have on your person in this container."

Luz nodded and emptied her pockets, depositing her lockpick and pocketknife into the box along with her house keys before removing her pistol from its holster inside her coat, pulling out the magazine, and making sure the chamber was clear before setting it in the box along with her spare magazines.

Everyone seemed surprised by this, except the man behind the counter, who just took the box off the counter and place it at his feet before giving Luz a thumbs up.

"Head on in, Raine is on the second floor."

"What is the room number?"

The man gave her an irritated look.

"Look for the one with all the cops outside it."

"Oookay," Luz said before walking through the double doors and heading for the staircase at the far end of the hall, walking past more people in blue sweats and white sweaters who were walking alongside men and women in white lab coats over button-up shirts and slacks.

Luz winded her way past them and jogged up the stairs to see one room with three cops standing outside of it, two flanked either side of the doorway and Hunter could be seen talking with an older man with a bushy grey beard who was reading a report from a clipboard, only for Hunter to silence him by raising a hand as she approached.

"What are you doing here Noceda?"

"Good morning to you too Officer Eurig," Luz said flatly. "I'm here to see Raine."

"On what grounds?"

"I have an eyewitness saying Raine was the last person seen with Eda Clawthorne. The missing woman your department refused to search for. They are my only lead." Luz said, crossing her arms.

Hunter exhaled sharply.

"Five minutes."

"Five minutes," Luz said with a nod as the man with the beard walked over and unlocked the door to Raine's room, letting the detective pass through before closing and locking the door behind her.

The room was L-shaped, with a small bathroom tucked up against the front wall across from a small wooden dresser with rounded edges. Further back was a twin-sized bed with a sky-blue knitted blanket sitting on top of it. As Luz rounded the corner, that's when she saw them, back against the wall with their legs pulled up to their chest, was Raine Whispers.

Their minty green hair was disheveled, and their forearms were covered in small square bandages, and Luz was able to see a sizable bruise on their ankle and shin, exposed thanks to hiked-up sweatpants that looked a size too small.

"Hi, Raine," Luz said gently, setting her lily down on the dresser before putting her hands in her pockets.

"Hello." They replied, looking up from their bed and squinting at her. "Do I know you?"

"No, we haven't met. My name is Luz, I was hoping you could help me with something." She continued, taking a step forward. "I'm looking for someone. People say she's a friend of yours: Eda Clawthorne."

"Eda?" Raine asked, fear creeping into their voice.

"That's right. I was hoping you could tell me when you saw her last." Luz continued, taking out her phone and setting it down on the nearby windowsill after turning on the voice recorder.

Raine screwed their eyes shut, pulling their hands into the sleeves of their sweater.

"We were going out to dinner, for the first time in a long time, and while we were driving, she started telling me about how we had to find the last piece of music."

Luz tilted her head.

"Music?"

Raine nodded.

"She said that in her dreams, she heard a song. A song that called her back to the island. I remember her telling me it seemed familiar, she said it sounded like I wrote it. Then she showed it to me, and now I can hear it too."

"What does it sound like?

"It sounds…incomplete…and lonely. I think if it was here in front of me, I'd want to finish it but if I tried to, I might end up hurting myself." Raine explained, fingers picking at a small thread at the end of their sleeve.

"Do you remember what happened after Eda told you about the song?" Luz asked, taking a seat at the foot of the bed as Raine shook their head.

"I-I don't remember." They whimpered, tears forming in their eyes as they balled up their fists. "Why can't I remember?"

Raine blinked hard a few times, raising their arms.

"I have to remember, have to remember." They grumbled before slowly and rhythmically pounding on the side of their head with their fists.

Luz winced and leaned forward, grabbing their wrists.

"Hey hey please don't hurt yourself." She said, gently but firmly.

Raine struggled against her grip for a moment before locking eyes with her.

"I remember…I remember now…you have to find Eda, you have to help Eda! She has to stop them from playing the song, they want to wake it up!" They shouted.

"Raine I need you to slow down, you're not making any sense-" Luz pleaded as the door opened.

"Alright Noceda, time is up," Hunter told her.

"Officer please, can I just get a few more-"

"Let the doctor do his work please." He insisted.

Luz sighed and looked to Raine who was hyperventilating.

"I'll find Eda for you, I promise."

"Thank you…" They whispered as Luz pulled her hands away and got up to pluck her flower off the dresser, as the doctor walked in.

"When did you guys find them?" She asked as she exited Raine's room.

"Last night, they were just plodding down one of the access roads not too far from here. Their hands were covered in blood, and they were crying and when my officers tried to talk to them, they were just humming a strange song and repeating a bunch of numbers over and over." Hunter told her.

"Was there a pattern?" Luz asked.

"Not that my guys noticed."

The detective shook her head, exasperated.

"Did any of them write it down? It may be worth a second look."

"Like the shotgun in the ceiling?" Hunter asked with a raised eyebrow.

I know what I saw. Luz wanted to say, even if she didn't believe it.

"Luz, I'm not going to pretend to know what was going through your head when you came here, but if you're looking to bust open some big conspiracy in small-town America to get you and your agency in the news. You're going to be disappointed." Hunter began.

"Sometimes the answer is simpler than you think. Raine may have killed Eda. Maybe Eda ran out on them, and they snapped and wandered off into the woods." Hunter said before he shrugged. "Hell, maybe Eda just doesn't want to be found."

Luz sighed.

"Look, when I took this case, I was thinking the same thing but then I came here, and I saw your missing person's board. Almost all of them are women…there has to come a point where you have to admit you might have missed something."

"Don't you have a psych eval to get to?" Hunter asked flatly.

The detective opened her to fire back a response but instead, huffed and spun around on her heels, heading back downstairs without another word.

At the bottom of the staircase, she fished a pink slip of paper out of her pocket, frowning at the angry black letters that read: PHYSCHOLGIACAL EXAMINATION REQUIRED.

Underneath those words was a small block of text giving the name and address of the facility as well as the name of the doctor she was required to see: Dr. Kiki.

After walking up and down the main hall for a few minutes, Luz was able to find a wooden door tucked away in the back corner of the building that had those words written on the opaque glass. Sitting by the door in wooden chairs were a young man and woman, both with green hair and golden eyes. The woman wore a bright yellow dress with a white sunhat while the man was wearing grey slacks and a marigold collared shirt underneath a grey blazer.

"Hey, there cutie." The young woman said as Luz approached

"Uh…hi." She replied, throwing her arms behind her back.

This girl seemed familiar for some reason.

"You must be Luz, we've heard a lot about you." The young man said pleasantly.

"How do you know my name?" The detective asked.

"How could we not? Our little sister never stops talking about you." The girl asked with a smirk.

No way. Luz thought.

"She told us all about your dinner date last night. Very cute." The boy added.

"You guys are Amity's siblings?"

The girl nodded.

"That's right. I'm Emira and the strange creature to my left goes by Edric."

"Who are you calling a strange creature?" Her brother grumbled.

"Have you smelled your room?" She asked, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

"It's my natural musk!" He yelped as Doctor Kiki's door opened and a teal-haired Amity stepped out, wearing a pink dress with a frilly white hem, black leggings, and pink flats.

Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw her friend's eyes flick back and forth between her bickering siblings like she was watching a tennis match.

"Hi, Luz!" She said quickly, a little louder than she intended.

"Oh Amity, hey!" Her friend said, smiling at her.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, taking a step forward.

Luz held up the pink slip of paper.

"I have to get checked out after…the other day."

Amity frowned.

"Oh, right. Well, Doctor Kiki is great. You couldn't ask for a better therapist."

"That's good to hear," Luz said as a swell of courage filled her heart.

"So, I brought you something, but it's a surprise so you have to close your eyes."

"Oh um ok," Amity said, her cheeks slowly turning red as Luz approached.

"No peeking." Her friend chided as she felt something touch her ear.

"Also your hair! It's back to normal, well not normal but-"

"It's ok Luz, I know what you mean. I do change it a lot." Amity said gently.

"Almost done." Her friend told her.

"We're gonna go wait in the car Mittens. Come find us when you're done being cute with your girlfriend." Edric teased as he and his sister disappeared around a corner.

"ED!" Amity snapped.

"All done," Luz said with a chuckle as she took a step back. "Go ahead and open your eyes."

Amity complied, smiling when she saw herself on Luz's phone which she had elected to use as an improvised mirror, with a white lily tucked behind her ear.

"Maybe it'll keep the nightmares away." Luz offered with a shy smile.

"Thanks, Luz. This is really sweet." Amity said.

"Of course." She replied. "Think we can hang out tonight?"

"Not tonight no, I'm going out on our family's yacht," Amity replied with a small frown.

"Tomorrow though?"

"Tomorrow," Luz said with a firm nod.

Her friend smiled and extended her arms, pulling her into a tight hug, nuzzling into her neck to get as close to her as she could. Luz's mind wandered away to thoughts of the two of them cuddling up on the love seat in her room.

Amity would play with her hair, wrap her legs around her whisper sweet nothings into her ear as she planted kisses on the top of her head and neck to drive her crazy until-

"Ms. Noceda?" A voice called, rudely yanking Luz out of her daydream and back to reality as she and Amity parted.

"Oh, that's me!" She said, raising her hand.

The woman standing in the doorway was holding a clipboard and was wearing a dark blue blouse and black slacks under her lab coat. Her dark blue hair covered part of her face, and the ends had been dyed teal, not dissimilar to Amity's hair. When her brown eyes found Luz, she smiled warmly at her.

"Come on back." She said before waving to Amity. "See you next week."

Amity waved back before saying goodbye to Luz and heading off towards the exit while Luz walked into the doctor's office and took a seat in a brown leather recliner as she heard the good doctor chatting with one of her colleagues, she leaned forward and saw a stack of manilla folders with sheets of notes sticking out of them, skimming through the opening lines of one exposed pages.

Subject seems to be implanting exaggerated personality traits on constructs as a way to cope with their grief. Increased dosage of already prescribed medication is strongly recommended.

Then she heard footsteps as the door to the room closed and she sat back in her chair.

"Luz Noceda, I heard you had quite a disturbing experience the other day." Doctor Kiki said as she sat down at her desk.

The detective sighed and nodded, looking down at the floor.

"I'd be lying if I was saying I wasn't a little rattled."

"Studies show a significant number of police officers develop PTSD throughout their career, and although private detectives do not face the same situations that they have to confront, I would argue they are more susceptible to developing PTSD because they lack the support structures that many police officers have." The doctor said as she tidied her desk.

"So being 'a little rattled' is nothing to be ashamed of. I'd be more worried if you weren't affected by the event."

"That's fair," Luz said with a nod as she looked up at the doctor, squinting at her pointed ears which were sticking out from her hair. The doctor seemed to notice her confused stare and chuckled.

"I forgot you were from the mainland." She said.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude-" Luz muttered, looking up and away.

"It's quite alright. Everyone from the islands has ears like this you know."

"Really?" Luz asked as the doctor nodded.

"It's a strange mutation that has only been observed here. Curious, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I'm just amazed how I didn't notice before now," Luz asked.

"Well, there is a reason." The doctor began. "It's the same reason why when you read a sentence with a missing word or two, you still understand what is being said. Your brain is filling in the blanks because it knows what that sentence is trying to say. How it should be. My latest theory is that reality is no different. Your brain is filling in what cannot be with what should be, but you can only ignore the true nature of the world for so long. The mind is a powerful thing, and the truth always gets out, one way or another."

"That's kind of amazing," Luz said with a grin, even as the dull pain in her head started to return.

"Very amazing." The doctor corrected, readying her pen. "Ah I'm sorry, breaking into tangents is a bad habit of mine. Let's get this evaluation going so you can get on with your day."

"Doctor, before we get started, could I ask you something?"

"Of course, Ms. Noceda."

"So according to your theory, the shadow I saw moving around in my room as a little kid, really moved?"

"Yes!" The doctor exclaimed. "Not only did it move. You just didn't want to think it did and neither did anyone else. So, they told you imagined it…in theory, of course."

Luz leaned back in her chair, a sense of unease settling over her as the good doctor continued to smile at her.

"Right, in theory."

…

The evaluation passed by in the blink of an eye, and after Doctor Kiki cleared Luz of any significant psychological trauma, Willow drove them both back to The Owl House to plan out their next move.

"Lilith gave me this book, there might be something I missed in it," Luz told her friend as she hustled up the stairs to her room and threw the door open.

"Meirda!" She shouted as Willow came up behind her.

"What? What's wrong?" She asked, sticking her head into the room before she saw the large red book Lilith gave her lying in the middle of the floor, lying face down with its pages splayed open.

"I'll go ask the front desk if they saw anything!" Willow said before she ran back downstairs.

Luz spat a flurry of curses in Spanish as she walked over and picked up the book, the torn and bent pages lead her to believe whoever was in her room had all the time in the world to sift through the contents of the book and find exactly what they were looking for.

Luz's eyes narrowed as she noticed on the fringes of a torn-out page were the beginnings of five red horizontal lines.

A five-line staff.

A series of timid notes crept into her ears, they seemed familiar.

Almost comfortingly so, but it also felt wrong.

Like a hug from a friend who had become a stranger.

As the music swelled, the pain in her head returned, stronger than before as she slammed the book shut, noticing the gibberish on the front of the tome was now legible.

The Bonesburrow Grimoire

Luz's pulse quickened as the music continued to build in her head, even as she covered her ears. The music seemed threatening now as if someone was dragging the blade of a knife up each vertebra of her spine, but the familiarity was still there.

An image of her friend Amity invaded her mind, doing just that.

Then the phone rang, and the music abruptly stopped.

Luz was hyperventilating as she walked across the room and took a deep shaky breath before she picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

Her mother's voice answered her.

"Mija! I just got your message. That girl, she did not kill herself. She drowned."

Luz blinked hard.

"Drowned?"

…

Amity Blight hated this song.

As the family yacht pulled out of the harbor, she had put one of her earbuds in and started playing her music off her iPod, cranking the volume up as high as she dared before she looked to her parents, who were standing on the bow looking out over the calm seas as classical music blared from nearby speakers.

"I'm gonna go below deck and get ready." She said, prompting her mother to turn around and nod, excusing her.

The young woman spun on her heel and opened the door that led inside, walking through the enormous dining room that was filled with paintings of trading vessels and warships from the age of sail paired with artifacts from various ancient civilizations around the world, from stone tablets to small statues all sitting on pedestals and encased in plexiglass.

As she headed down deeper into the ship, she passed multiple members of the crew who were preparing for the evening her parents had no doubt meticulously planned for her this morning. Amity did her best to pass by them as quickly as she could, turning to walk down the long empty hallway that ran down the center of the ship and to her room which sat underneath the bow.

As she closed the door she flopped down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling as the ocean gently rocked her and the ship back and forth.

Her thoughts drifted to Luz, and the look of delight and confusion she had when Amity had dipped a french fry into her milkshake, or the way she info dumped several of her Azura fan theories without even taking a breath between sentences.

As she lifted her leg and rested it on her knee, she bounced her foot to the beat of the Mystery Skull's Ghost, imaging what Luz would look like in a fine dress, pulling Amity out to the dance floor amongst a sea of other couples. She twirled her and lifted her as they danced, wearing down the soles of their flats as they danced before the music slowed and the lights dimmed, she would put her arms around Luz's shoulders and Luz would snake her arms around her waist and pull her closer before leaning in and…

The sound of the engines slowing down pulled her from her daydream and Amity was forced to open her eyes, sighing as she rolled onto her side, grabbing one of her pillows and holding it close to her chest as she fixated on her closet as she heard the crew begin to shuffle about.

She wanted to go on dates.

She wanted a girlfriend.

She wanted a future that wasn't planned out for her.

She wanted a normal life.

She wanted to escape from this prison she had been put in just for being born on the Boiling Isle as Odalia and Alador's Blight third child, but she knew that was impossible.

She got up and walked to her closet, opening it to find a violin case propped up in the corner tucked behind a red and black gothic dress with long lace sleeves. She reached around the dress and grabbed the case, its brass handle feeling unnaturally cold in her hand as she walked out of her room, back to the stairway, and descended further down into the depths of the ship, past the engineering deck.

In the keel of the ship was an observation room, made almost entirely of glass. The crew and her parents stood at the edges, their backs to the glass as they watched her walk in and set her case down next to an ornate golden musical stand.

On the stand were two pieces of heavily water-damaged sheet music, written in red ink. The title had been lost to time but the composer's name, E. Zhan, was still visible. The strange arrangement they had dreamed up was a mess. The song seemed to have no rhythm, its notes were disjointed, and changes were often abrupt almost as if the song had been written from an undistilled stream of consciousness.

As Amity she examined her violin which itself was made of ebony wood and adorned with silver engravings the reminded her of an ocean swell. Her bow was made of whalebone, passed down from her ancestors who had first settled the island in times long past.

The teal haired girl set the instrument on her shoulder and rested her cheek against it as she had been taught before her eyes flicked over to her parents, who nodded in assurance and then raised their arms above their heads as they began to chant before the crew joined them and Amity began to play, struggling to steady her trembling hands as her stomach started to churn.

She locked her eyes onto the sheet music, feeling her eyes begin to burn as a numbness started to set in across her whole body. Her pulse quickened and she took a shaky breath as she stumbled through the song, her mind wandering back to when she had heard Luz had been attacked.

She knew her friend would be in danger as long as she was here.

An image of Luz sitting in a bathtub, her wrists cut flashed through her head

No! Amity thought as her bow screeched against the strings of her instrument and the chanting of her parents and the yacht crew slowly fizzled out, leaving the observation room eerily quiet as her mother walked over to her.

She couldn't let what happened to Abagail happen to Luz.

She couldn't just do nothing.

Not again.

She had to find a way to protect her.

Somehow.

She felt her mother's hand fall on her shoulder, but it was hardly a comforting feeling.

"Push any and all distractions out of your mind my sweet. Dwell on nothing else but this. This is the only thing that matters, this-"

"-is the reason I was born." Amity finished with a sigh.

Her mother nodded proudly before taking a step back as she got ready to play again, pushing all her hopes and wants away.

A date with Luz.

Her desire to become a teacher.

Her wish not to feel so lonely in a crowded room.

Instead, she played the song for the deep, A nocturne for the fathomless, and after a short while, the fathomless sang back. Milky white figures just of sight twirled and danced in the inky black of the depths as they played their infernal song on flutes of bone, tentacles swirling beneath them.

The cacophony that was created reminded her of dental equipment, inter-spliced the cries of a single lonely whale lost in the abyss, calling out to anyone who could hear.

Amity winced as she felt a presence enter her skull, poking and prodding at what she hadn't managed to push out of mind. She felt its gaze fall upon her desire to be with Luz, whimpering to herself as the image was warped and corrupted by the song.

'Just let me have this.' She wanted to say even as she watched Luz drown and burn and writhe in pain all at once, flickering images stacked on top of each other like she was viewing them on a broken overhead projector.

A single streak of blood raced down her face from the corner of her eye as she felt the presence overwhelm her.

Amity Blight really hated this song.

…

A.N- Poor Amity, one day I will write a continuity where her life isn't 1000% f-ed up. Heavens knows she deserves a break. I'm very excited to share tomorrow's chapter with you all as it contains one of my favorite creatures from any piece of fiction ever! For those of you familiar with Lovecraft, it'll be quite a treat. For those of you who are new to all this, prepare yourselves for some nightmare fuel!

Thanks for reading and I'll see you guys tomorrow!